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Amy and Ryan wed.
The showrunners did an awesome job directing these scenes, giving us only tiny bits of Ste’s apparent journey through the night of Amy’s death, spliced into normal scenes. Apparently he even ran into the woods at one point to call his dealer, unable to cope with the impending loss of his children. But that only opened up more questions such as was he running from the scene of his crime? Did he see the murder taking place and ran for his own life? Using amnesia or this drug fueled version of it may be a classic, maybe even overused story trope to throw red herrings into a mystery but having the main suspect be the one needing to piece it all together is unique. I love to see old ideas being turned on their heads and this storyline has begun to do just that.
I do not think Ste would ever kill the mother of his children, I don’t think he has that in him. Ste is much more of a weakling than he likes to let on. He’s easily coerced, tricked and lead into things, he’s never one to really lead the charge and murdering someone even accidentally takes a certain kind of person. I do however believe that creepy detective Armstrong might be the culprit.
Leah and Lucas were left in the care of Ste’s half-sister Leela Lomax, a story note that I found odd considering the two hadn’t been close for a long time. Currently Leela is in the middle of a scary stalker situation and unknown to her, the perpetrator is the very man claiming to be investigating it. DS Armstrong came onto the scene as a no-nonsense detective for the Dee Valley police but I never expected him to be a stalker. Leave it to Hollyoaks to give a character a dark twist like that.
Throughout the week, characters make little side comments about how cops always look out for one another. They try to reassure Ryan in his time of grieving that he has to let his friends at the station do their work, pulling him out of trying to investigate Amy’s death on his own which would lead to conflict. Instead, through Leah admitting she’d heard Ste and Amy fighting the night of Amy’s death; Armstrong is able to drag Ste in for questioning only to basically coerce the confused man into confessing to the murder. He used so many different leading words to get Ste to answer in ways that would incriminate him. That raised a huge red flag for me. That and the fact that Amy trusted her attacker, and allowed him into the apartment without question. And I also noticed that the sleeves shown in the violent flashbacks of Amy’s death matched those of Armstrong’s suit at her wedding – and later in the night during the investigation, he was dressed in a different suit.
Could this all be Armstrong’s plan to get rid of the human thorn in his fellow police buddy’s side by shipping him off to jail? Maybe Amy was only supposed to get hurt in this scheme but somehow it escalated to this. There are so many ways this mystery could play out and I don’t think any of them are what people are expecting at all. And that’s how a mystery should be done. Take note, US soaps!
All in all, I think they did Amy justice. She’d been off and on the canvas for a long time, popping in whenever Ashley Slanina-Davies had the time in between studying. Now that she was set to move on from acting and pursue her career, Amy had to leave permanently. I would have loved some high stakes court drama between Amy and Ste because the two are as amazing as enemies as well as friends, but there’s no way Amy would have ever lost custody of Leah and Lucas; Ste’s rap sheet was something legendary. I think a huge part in deciding Amy had to die went to the fact that Hollyoaks has a little star in Leah’s actress, Ela-May Melek Demircan. They have to keep that girl around! Someone knew Amy would not be allowed to ride off into the sunset with those kids in tow. So she had to die. The scenes leading up to it as well as the silent scene of the kids writing letters to Amy and sending them off in balloons were so well done. Such a beautiful send off for a beautiful character.
Do Part
A few storylines branched off of the main murder mystery this last week, one of them being Mercedes McQueen spotting a mysterious figure going into Amy’s apartment after breaking into her neighbor’s home and another came in the form of Tony Hutchinson and his family covering Ste’s tracks. Tony mentioned this last week that he saw Ste as a son, the two of them having gone through many trials and tribulations together but unfortunately that blind support could also cost him his natural born son, Harry Thompson. DNA isn’t the only thing Tony and Harry share but also that incredibly misguided need to always protect Ste’s grown ass. But Tony’s wife, Diane? She’s not having any of that. Thank God for her being there to give these foolish men a dose of some truth tea!
Harry and Ste are a couple that has long since ran its course. Seducing your best friend’s teenage son is creepy, there’s no question about that. They were hot and sexy as they fooled around, sure, trying to keep their little affair a secret and giving viewers a lot of great shirtless scenes. But now that sexiness has washed up, they’ve become an old married couple always arguing over trivial things when it’s the much bigger incidents that Harry should be fighting about!
Ste arrived to the Hutchinson home, disoriented, blank faced in the shower washing off the blood he’d dripped through the entire house. Diane and Tony clean it up, thinking that it was all from Ste’s cut but they soon learn that Amy had been murdered in the night and wondered could there be more Ste’s confusing story. Like the idiot follower he is, Harry falls right back in line to forgiving Ste for cheating on him (again) so he can stand behind him during this murder investigation. Now tell me, where would you draw the line on your boyfriend? Would it be after cheats on you with your friend, gets addicted to crystal meth or now gets you to lie to protect him in a murder investigation where he’s the prime suspect? Harry only made a temporary stand for himself during these times, never letting anything stick and always allowing himself to look like a downright fool following after this man-child.
When the police come knocking on the Hutchinson’s door, Harry was quick to say that Ste had been with him all night even if the entire town witnessed them falling out. Predictably, when it all hit the fan, Harry was arrested alongside Ste for giving false statements to the police. Even with his own unnecessary jail sentence looming, the only thing Harry cared about was getting Ste the best lawyer in the form of James Nightingale. I agreed with Harry in the sense that the cops are probably working together to pin the crime on him but he has to draw a line! Tony and Diane were both cautious about letting Ste and Harry date because let’s be real, Ste is a horrible influence! Eventually they grew to accept the couple but only Diane seems to understand that he hasn’t changed as much as they’d like to think. Harry is young, only a university freshman and he’s dealt with so much volatile relationship drama that should put him off wanting to date for the next decade.
Focus on school first instead of the increasingly dangerous situations your boyfriend lands into.
This couple really needs to go their separate ways from now. Ste could deal with being single for a while and Harry needs someone hot and in his age range. There aren’t many characters in the university set at the moment and there are definitely some danglers on the canvas that can go, making room for some new young adult blood in the village. I really just feel bad for Harry now, it must suck loving someone so much who probably only sees you as an emergency contact or something.
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